Robert Lyndon - Hawk Quest

‘Drogo and Walter are stepbrothers,’ Vallon cut in.

The man-at-arms chuckled. ‘Sounds like Sir Walter forgot to tell you.’

‘Yes,’ said Vallon with fake resentment. ‘He claimed he was the sole heir.’

‘Right, it’s like this. Drogo’s the eldest son of the Count’s first wife, a farm girl from the next village. She died giving birth to Richard. Reckon she took one look at his face and lost the will to live. Lady Margaret had been married, too. Widowed at fourteen, when she was still carrying Walter. Much classier breed. Her family holds land near Evreux. But here’s the strange thing. Walter and Drogo were born on the same day. Sort of twins.’

‘And rivals.’

‘Been fighting since they began to crawl. Would have killed one another by now if Lady Margaret hadn’t persuaded Walter to go abroad.’ The man-at-arms laughed. ‘So golden boy’s alive. Doesn’t surprise me. Could talk his way out of hell, that one. But you don’t need me to tell you how smooth-tongued he can be. Here we are,’ he said, pushing open a shed door with a mock flourish. ‘The guest suite.’

Clean rushes carpeted the floor. A basin of water steamed on a brazier. Clothes had been laid out on two sleeping platforms.

The man-at-arms lounged against the door. ‘You didn’t say where you were from.’

‘Aquitaine,’ Vallon said, steering him out. ‘Nowhere you would have heard of.’

Hero collapsed on to his bed. There wasn’t a bone or muscle in his body that didn’t cry out for relief. Through sticky eyes he watched Vallon strip off and wash himself. Where his clothes had protected him from the weather, his body was as white as a peeled stick. Hero had a vision of the warriors carved in stone on the walls of Salerno cathedral.

Vallon shook him awake. ‘Did you foul yourself when the Normans charged?’

Hero’s response was slurred. ‘No, sir.’

‘Even so, you’re filthy. Wash yourself. You’ll feel better for it.’

Hero hobbled over to the brazier.

Vallon yawned. ‘Drogo’s going to be a problem.’

Hero shuddered. ‘He’s a wild beast.’

Vallon laughed. ‘Born with wasps in his hair and a wolf at his throat. Still, put yourself in his skin. We’ve brought him the worst news imaginable.’

Hero turned. Vallon lay on his back, his sword by his side.

‘Sir, considering that he has us at his mercy, you seem remarkably unconcerned.’

Vallon didn’t answer for a moment. ‘Lady Margaret’s a determined lady, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yes, sir. How did you know she was in the party that came to our rescue?’

‘Because I wrote giving warning of our arrival.’

Stung that Vallon hadn’t told him, Hero risked a criticism. ‘You took too great a risk, sir. You should have waited in Durham until she sent for us.’

‘I wasn’t sure how much influence Drogo wielded. Suppose we’d waited and Drogo had turned up to escort us. He would have returned to the castle with sad news — an ambush on a lonely road, the foreigners slain … ’ Vallon waved a hand.

Hero toppled back on to his bed. He was so tired that at first he missed the significance of what Vallon had said. He jerked upright. ‘You knew about Drogo, too?’

‘I made enquiries about the family in London. I’m not so foolhardy as to rush into the unknown.’

Hero crossed his arms over his chest. His mouth set in a resentful line.

Vallon’s head rolled to face him. ‘I didn’t want to burden you with more fears than you already carry.’

‘Thank you for your consideration,’ Hero said in a tight voice.

Vallon smiled. ‘If it’s any consolation, you’ve acquitted yourself better than I expected. To tell the truth, I never thought you’d get as far as the Channel.’

Hero’s lip trembled at this double-sided compliment. ‘Then you’re not angry with me.’

‘Angry for what?’

‘For leading you on this vile and unprofitable enterprise.’

‘You didn’t lead me anywhere,’ Vallon said. He reached for the lamp and nipped out the flame. ‘If anyone’s to blame, it’s that one-eyed magus we buried in the Alps.’

Wayland drew back the wattle shutter and watched the foreigners walking towards the hall. Since their arrival, the snow had fallen without pause for two days. Now the sky was ablaze with stars and the strangers cast shadows as black as ink.

A bell rasped. On Wayland’s gloved left hand, tethered by leash and jesses, sat a goshawk with its eyelids stitched together. He’d trapped her four days ago in a net baited with a dove. She was a passager, still in her juvenile plumage, her buff chest streaked with umber barbs. After jessing her and seeling her eyes, Wayland had left her undisturbed until he judged from the sharpness of her breastbone that she was keen enough to be handled. Since he had picked her up yesterday evening she hadn’t left his fist. She wouldn’t sleep until she ate. Until she ate, he wouldn’t get any sleep.

When the strangers disappeared into the hall, Wayland closed the shutter and turned. The arena for this battle of wills was a mews of riven oak lit by a single lamp. Behind a canvas drape at the opposite end, two peregrines — falcon and tiercel — dozed like small idols on a beam perch. Wayland began to pace the earth floor, four steps forward, four steps back. A brindled hound lying by his pallet tracked his movements with sleepy eyes. The dog was enormous, heavier than most full-grown men. Part mastiff, part greyhound, part wolf, its bloodline went back to the Celtic warhounds prized by Britain’s Roman invaders.

As he patrolled, Wayland drew a fillet of pigeon breast across the goshawk’s feet. She ignored it. She couldn’t see and had no sense of smell. The food was merely an irritant. Wayland stroked her back and shoulders with a quill. She didn’t react to that, either. Pinching her long middle toe provoked a feeble hiss — nothing like the outraged gasps that had greeted the lightest touch when he caught her. He knew she was ready to eat. Some hawks fed the first night, most refused for a day or two, but only once had Wayland found a hawk that would rather starve than submit. That had been a goshawk, too — a haggard so old that its eyes had darkened to the colour of pigeon’s blood. It had spent a day and a night thrashing upside down from his glove before he cut its jesses and cast it back into the wild.

Wayland was less focused on his task than he should have been. The garrison was buzzing with stories about the strangers. A mysterious Frankish veteran of far-off wars had broken Fulk’s wrist and held a sword against Roussel’s throat. And got away with it! His servant — his catamite said some — was an astrologer who spoke every known tongue and carried medicines blessed by the Pope. Wayland was desperate to get a closer look at them, but he couldn’t leave the hut until he’d manned the hawk. Deciding to force the pace, he pulled the hawk’s right leg down with thumb and forefinger, applying pressure until she snaked her head at his hand. Her beak closed on pigeon breast instead. She wrenched off a wedge, imagining she’d got her enemy, and flicked it away. But the taste lingered. She salivated and shifted into a more balanced stance. Wayland held his breath as she inflated her feathers, swelling as if building up to a violent sneeze. She roused with a furious rattle, flicked her tail, tightened her talons and bent her head.

The dog’s eyes opened. It lifted its craggy head, listening, then sprang up in one unconsidered movement. The commotion made the hawk bate so violently that the draught of her wings blew out the lamp. In the blackout Wayland couldn’t control her twisting and flapping. He opened the shutter and by the wash of starlight managed to scoop her back on to his fist and untwist her jesses. Mouth agape, chest heaving, she squatted on his glove like a spastic chicken. Wayland knew that the setback meant the loss of another night’s sleep, but he couldn’t set her down now. If he did, all the advances he’d made would be reversed, and he’d have to go through the whole tedious process from scratch. The dog, oblivious to his reproachful growl, threatened the door, its muzzle rucked back from canines the size of small tusks.